Alright, as you guys know, today’s weather is pretty nice for doing a few drifts and whatnot in the parking lots. Not for me…
When I first got the car, it came with Hercules H/P4000 tires on the rear and almost-bald no-name radials up front (Motomaster I assume).
Anyway, throughout the first 3 days of ownership, I noticed that my rear tires were going flat. My rear driver’s side was completely flat while the passenger side was almost there. So I assumed one of the neighborhood punks (or the punk who goes to my school to placed a Kijiji ad for a '94 RX-7 FD3S under my name and phone number) removed my valve caps and pushed the needle to let the air out.
So I go in my garage and start up my air compressor so I can refill the tires.
Tires are properly inflated. Good.
5 days later, they’re flat again… I refill the tires assuming its one of the neighborhood punks again.
So a few days ago I wanted to machine my rear rotors. So I pull off the wheels and place 'em on the steps on my porch while I’m in the garage machining them on the brake lathe. I noticed that my mom was watering the plants to I tell her to spray the wheels as well. No harm done.
After I installed the rotors and calipers back on the car, I go to pick up the wheels from the porch. Just then I noticed that a small amount of water had formed around the area where the tire meets the wheel. I then notice bubbles coming out, indicating that the neighborhood punks didn’t do anything to my tires and that all I’ve got is a slow leak. I was like WTF? More problems on this thing!
So I shrugged it off, since refilling the tires with air is a good thing, at least there’s no nail or some s#!t in the tires.
Anyways, onto today…
The tires were fine today, they were still inflated properly, driver’s side having 33 psi while the passenger had 34 psi. Should be even and at 35 psi but oh well…
So I go to the closest parking lot (big empty church parking lot in the middle of nowhere) and initiate some feints to get into a drift (I’ve got an automatic, so no e-brake pulling for me). Just as I came out of my ‘jook’ and into the drift, I head a loud sound coming from my rear passenger side. It sounded really awful, like metal on metal contact. So as I slowly drove off to the side of the parking lot, it sounds even worse. I fear the worst, assuming that my UCA broke and that my alignment and everything got fscked. I get out of the car to take a look and noticed that the wheel is still aligned properly, but that my tire came off the rim! WTF?!
I knew from past experience that these tires have stupid-soft sidewalls, but I did do a drift a few weeks earlier during dry weather and my tire didn’t come off, just a LOT of air. But knowing rain, the coefficient of friction should be less than during a dry weather situation, right? So technically, I’m putting less strain on the tire now than I did when the ground was dry. Why is it that my tire came off now? I wasn’t even going faster than 40 km/h when all this happened…
So I put on my 4-way flashers and drove home. I then had to pull out the spare and put it on. Since you’re usually supposed to put the spare on the wheels that AREN’T the drive wheels, I decided, wtf, screw it. My front tires are bald and I don’t even drive often enough in a week. I’ll source out someone locally to install my tire back and balance 'em for cheap.
Anyone in Durham with a tire changed + balancer who wouldn’t mind picking up my wheel/tire and re-installing it + balancing it for cheap ($10-15?)
I don’t really know the point of this thread, its really just me venting and asking for someone to fix up my wheel/tire as well as say that Hercules Tires are :greddy:
If anyone has had any experience with Hercules Tires, go ahead and share them with us.
Pics for those who care:
